Royal Enfield

Damn show offs. That’s right – we’re calling it as we see it. The guys from Cycle Icons are show offs. Why? Well listen up, ’cause we’re about to rain on their little parade big time. First they go and create one of the sweetest little Enfields we’ve ever seen. It get a serious amount of coverage and applause from almost everyone, except a few guys in the EXIF comments section which means they are obviously doing something pretty friggin’ right. Job done, yeah? Break out a case o’ cans and rest on your own merits, yeah? Of course! But not for these guys. So what do they do? They go again. ON THE SAME BIKE! C’mon! And as if that’s not bad enough we think they’ve actually gone and made it better. Boo! They’re like that high-school jock who saves the game by scoring in the final minute and then scores again with seconds on the clock just to make sure no one missed the fact that he’s so annoyingly talented. Do you have a mental image of him in your head? Good. Now swap the team uniform for a Cycle Icons Tee. See where we’re going with this?

The country Nepal is probably most famous for that rather large hill they call Everest. Known to the locals as ‘Sagarmatha’, or ‘Goddess of the sky’. The thing they are probably least famous for is their killer death metal bands. Oh – and building custom motorcycles. As we recently learnt, there’s a reason for this. Any type of of motorcycle modification is strictly prohibited by the Nepalese Government. Not one to thrive living inside the rules, Sergey Egorov decided to chance it and build one of the first truly custom bikes in Nepal. This is the story about the bike named ‘Himalayan Outlaw’ or as we’d like to call her if we magically got naming rights, ‘Goddess of the street’.

Here at the Pipeburn palace, we often wonder aloud to ourselves while relaxing river-side with the elephants, a fresh yoghurt Lassi and decent serve of post-curry gulab jamun, just why there isn’t more Royal Enfield-based customs around the place. After all, they are in a way a living fossil whose basic design hasn’t changed since 1948. Surely this would make a perfect base for creating a motorcycle that would be pleasing to these young coffee racer-types we hear so much of? Today we were doing just that – wondering, that is – when the young tea wala broke his usual silence and pointed out to us that we had indeed received a communiqué from our good friend Vijay of the very reputable Rajputana Customs in Jaipur just this very day. “My word,” I exclaimed. Then there was a long pause in proceedings where I stared into the distance, adjusted my monocle, and commanded the wala to refill my tea with a mere twitch of my eyebrow. “Well, shouldn’t we read it?” Scotty interrupted. “Jolly good,” I said. “Let’s have at it then…”

This bike, believe it or not, was a wedding gift. No, it wasn’t on the gift registry but the soon-to-be groom Subhayou Nayak decided to buy himself a little present before the big day. Smart guy. So he commissioned Vijay Singh and his team at Rajputana Customs in India to build him something special. The brief for the bike was pretty straight forward. “Subhayou specified that he wanted an old-school-looking fatty, with a 300mm rear tyre and a Royal Enfield 500cc engine” said Vijay. Apart from that, they could pretty much do what they wanted.

Just came across this stunning motorcycle on Bikermetric. No, it’s not the latest from Falcon Motorcycles – although it does look like they’ve taken inspiration from the Bullet Falcon. Surprisingly, it was built by a custom shop in India called Rajputana Custom Motorcycles. The bike was made for a famous Bollywood actor, model and singer named John Abraham. Vijay Singh, Rajputana Customs Co-Owner said: “The bike we have built for John is an extension of his personality and taste. For instance, the bike is subtle, simplistic, and a complete stand-out much like John’s calm and uncomplicated demeanor but amazing presence”. Doesn’t John sound like a catch?

Simon Lister is a sound engineer by trade but has a passion for photography and riding motorcycles to places only a handful of adventurers would dare to venture. He has ridden Royal Enfield’s through Rajasthan in northern India and has recently returned home from the Himalayas traversing some of the tallest passes in existence. We love how Lister describes riding in India… “When you’re on the motorbike, the adrenaline is running the whole time. You see amazing things on the road, especially in India. You see funerals, people on the roads, thousands of trucks, elephants, camels, dogs, dead dogs, dogs eating dead dogs, cattle, what you smell, what you see, what you taste, everything. It’s an explosion of all your senses.” You can view his beautiful collection of photographs on Simon Lister Photography. [If you want to do a trip on a Royal Enfield around India visit Venture on Wheels and they will organize an adventure of a lifetime].

Billy Joel isn’t just into Harley Davidsons. He actually has over 30 bikes with loads of cafe racers and bobbers. 20 of his bikes are on display in New York at Christy’s Art Center. It’s called ‘The Motorcycle as Art and Icon’ and we wish we were in NY to check it out. His beautiful Royal Enfield cafe racer built by Mike DePalo of UK Motorsports is among them. This is a great interview with Billy talking about his cafe racers…

Royal Enfield have announced 2 new models available in the states. The Bullet Classic C5 and the Bullet G5. They have the classic looks with the modern technology. From first impressions they look really nice. For all the specs and more detail visit Motorcycling Mag.

Royal Enfield are selling aftermarket kits on its website now. They look ok, the scrambler kit looks much better than the cafe racer kit – the seat looks too square. There’s The Cafe Racer, The Scrambler and the Continental…